Generally, a fogging device, which produces fine water particles like fog, is located in a green house or a barn in which a variety of vegetables, garden products, or farm animals are cultivated or raised to spray chemical liquid or adjust humidity and temperature thereinto.
A plastic fogging device used generally includes: a fixing body having coupling holes to which posts are coupled formed on one side or both sides thereof or in every direction thereof, a hose coupling pipe to which an insertion pipe and a hose are respectively fitted on the upper and lower sides thereof, and locking projections formed on both sides of the insertion pipe; a nozzle fixture having a I protrusion formed on the lower end periphery thereof in such a manner as to be coupled to the locking projections of the fixing body and handles protruding from both sides of the upper portion thereof; a nozzle adapted to be inserted into a nozzle insertion hole having a locking projection penetrating into the nozzle fixture; and a nipple screw-coupled to the nozzle fixture and having a fixing portion formed on the upper side thereof to pressurize the nozzle and a passage adapted to supply water from the insertion pipe to the nozzle.
The nozzle includes: a body having a locking step from which a protruding round rim protrudes to come into contact with the locking projection formed on the nozzle insertion hole; a nipple induction projection formed on the lower periphery of the body; a conical vortex space formed on the inner face of the body to supply water to a nozzle hole, which is formed on the upper end thereof, in the form of vortex; and one passage formed underneath the vortex space to guide the water to the vortex space from the outside of the body in the form of vortex. Further, the insertion hose of the fixing body and the nipple are coupled to be spaced apart from each other in their assembled state. According to the conventional plastic fogging device, when the nipple is disassembled and assembled to clean the nozzle, the nozzle is not rigidly pressurized upon the abrasion of the screw of the nipple, and even when the nozzle fixture and the nozzle are brought into close contact with each other, because the locking projection formed on the nozzle insertion hole at the inner face of the nozzle fixture and the protruding round rim formed on the locking step on the body of the nozzle are in point contact with each other, if a fine scar occurs on the protruding round rim, functionality of the nozzle may be deteriorated.
In order to remove the above-mentioned problems, the same inventor as the present invention proposed a plastic fogging device disclosed in Korean Utility Model Registration No. (Y1)20-0419612 (issued on Jun. 21, 2006). In Korean Utility Model Registration No. (Y1)20-0419612, a nozzle fixture and a nozzle get in surface contact with each other, and in the state where a nipple is coupled to the nozzle fixture, the lower end periphery of the nipple comes into contact with an insertion hose formed on the upper end periphery of a fixing body, so that the nozzle is always fixed under the same conditions. Further, the nozzle has a straight pipe portion formed underneath the vortex space in such a manner as to have the same height as a plurality of passages guiding water to the vortex space, thus enhancing water supply and fogging efficiency even under low pressure.
In the meantime, various technologies for generating fog have been proposed, and as a presentative example, there is a fog nozzle disclosed in Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2010-0035839 published on Apr. 7, 2010. The fog nozzle includes: a nozzle body having a jet orifice formed in one end thereof for spraying a fluid and a coupling hole formed in the inner peripheral surface of the other end thereof; a pressure pin having a head which is formed on an end thereof, has a guide hole and is inserted and joined into the inner peripheral surface of the other end of the nozzle body; an elastic body joined with the other end of the pressure pin; and a strainer whose one end has an inner peripheral surface to which the other end of the elastic body is inserted and an outer peripheral surface inserted and coupled to the coupling hole of the nozzle body, the strainer having inflow holes formed in the outer peripheral surface of the other end thereof for allowing inflow of the fluid.
As another example, Korean Patent No. 10-1232340 issued on Feb. 13, 2013 discloses an air fog generator. The air fog generator includes: a cylindrical first housing having a water supply port and a conical second housing having an air supply port and a nozzle port; the first housing and the second housing being screw-coupled to each other; a hydraulic adjustor provided in the inside of the housing to uniformly adjust pressure of water supplied and supply the adjusted water to the nozzle port; and a gas-liquid mixing unit provided in the inside of the housing to mix liquid discharged from the hydraulic adjustor with air flowing in through the air supply port and spray fine water drops through the nozzle port, wherein discharge pressure of the hydraulic adjustor is higher than air pressure of the gas-liquid mixing unit.
As a further example, Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2006-0128289 on Dec. 14, 2006 discloses an ultrafine water spray nozzle. In Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2006-0128289, a gas passage is mounted by a partition wall fit to the outer periphery of a liquid passage. The gas passage communicates with a spray port. The section of the gas passage formed at the spray port of the partition wall is formed in a deformed shape of a polygon, a long circle, or an oval, and the section of the outer peripheral surface of the gas passage is formed in a shape of a circle. The deformed outer surface of the partition wall comes into contact with the outer peripheral surface of the circular section at plural spots so that the gas passage formed at the spray port part is divided into plural gas passages in a peripheral direction. Alternatively, the section of the outer surface of the partition wall is formed in a shape of a circle, and the section of the outer peripheral surface of the spray port of the gas passage is formed in a deformed shape of a polygon, a long circle, or an oval. The outer peripheral surface of the partition wall comes into contact with the outer surface of the spray port of the gas passage at plural spots so that the gas passage formed at the spray port part is divided into plural gas passages in a peripheral direction. Therefore, the gas sprayed from the spray port of the divided gas passages is mixed with the liquid sprayed from the liquid passage and the mixture can be sprayed.
However, the conventional fog generators have several disadvantages in that there is a limit in providing micro-state fog because they form fog by pulverizing water (liquid) just once, and in that it is difficult to apply them to general farms at a low price because most of the fog generators using compressed air are an injector type which is complex in structure.
Meanwhile, the conventional fog products can make very tiny micro fog when a vortex body structure is applied to the structure that water is continuously supplied like the prior arts and high pressure is applied to the structure, but because the high pressure fog has a hole size of 0.1 mm to 0.3 mm, the high pressure fog is stopped by foreign matters floating in the water or calcium ions or iron ions dissolved in the water and is almost impossible to clean.
Furthermore, the low pressure micro fog is the method of finely pulverizing particles by continuously supplying water into a venturi space using twin-fluid. However, the low pressure micro fog also has a disadvantage in that it has to use a lot of air. So, capacity of a compressor must be increased.
Additionally, a conventional fog which pulverizes water by the micro unit using a flow rate of air flowing at high pressure when a flow direction of water is the same as a direction of the air also has several disadvantages in that capacity of the compressor must be increased because it consumes lots of compressed air, in that water must be drained off from the pipe because dripping water may be generated after use and it has a complicated structure and is spread at a high price because a dripping water preventing structure must be inserted into the fog.